Busted Buses
Gotham Gazette has posted a nice urban planning story about New York transit issues, basically concluding that the city's buses are screwed up and that's why new data show that New Yorkers spend more time commuting than people in other U.S. cities. Initally when I saw those headlines, I scoffed. I'm from California, after all, and a commute in New York is nothing like driving L.A. freeways during rush-hour.

Still, there are some interesting facts in this column from Tom Angotti, who is a professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College, City University of NY and the editor of Progressive Planning Magazine. Here are some nice little morsels:

According to transportation expert and Gotham Gazette columnist Bruce Schaller, New York City has the slowest buses in the country. The average speed is about 7.5 miles per hour. The Straphangers Campaign’s Pokey Award for the slowest bus went to the M23, which averages 3.4 miles per hour, about the pace of a brisk walker.

New York City lacks a strong and consistent industrial retention strategy. The city has been rezoning viable industrial and mixed use neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens to encourage new residential development. The jobs in these neighborhoods are being pushed out into the suburbs and beyond. This is feeding a modest increase in long-distance reverse commuting to the suburbs.

At the same time, the city is losing its traditional walk-to-work communities. Mixed industrial/residential areas that are now turning into havens for apartment developers, like Greenpoint/Williamsburg and Red Hook in Brooklyn, and Long Island City in Queens, once had about one-third of their residents walking to work. The current percentage citywide is only about ten percent.

Another problem is that new bedroom communities in the outer boroughs are being built like suburban-style enclaves that encourage auto use. ... The fewer people that use buses, the fewer buses the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will put in service, and the fewer buses in service the more people will be prompted to get in their cars.

- posted by Amy @ 3/17/2004 09:51:00 AM